


The Magic number

by Pezzythecat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:09:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26140891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pezzythecat/pseuds/Pezzythecat
Summary: Tap. Tap. Tap.one. two . three.Familiar and strange yet comforting as a fresh brewed cup of tea and words unsaid, words that should be spoken, archived for a rainy day.Jon cant get it right, no matter how close he follows that familiar pattern and it hurts Martin to his core to see it.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	The Magic number

**Author's Note:**

> This is a flashfic written for the Magnus Archives Flash Fan work Challenge prompt "Mirror". Check it out at https://magnus-mailday.dreamwidth.org!

  
  
  


Martin knew that Jon was watching him, ever since he had come back from America Jon had seemed to be a constant presence, hovering in his peripheral vision waiting.

Martin wasn’t sure what it was the man was waiting for, but he never once complained.

Jon was back, he was safe, and he would not complain if Jon seemed to gravitate towards him whenever the chance arose.

They sat quietly now, in the cafe around the corner from the institute, a large pot of tea between them and a full English each, although Jon seemed to push it around his plate more than he was actually eating it, too busy watching.

Jon was worried, concerned that Martin had been reading the statements, worried that the world that had dragged him in to his clutches was on course to do the same to Martin as well.

Not that the man would admit it in as many words, stubborn fool that he was. for a man who commanded knowledge as a default, the ability to use it was often lost on Jonathan Sims.

Jon watched as Martin poured the tea, the dark brown liquid filling the mugs, two sugars each, stir twice, tap the spoon, Tap. Tap. Tap, stir again, add the milk. Tap the spoon.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Couldn’t get good tea in America.” Jon said as he drank deep, his eyes watching from behind his porcelain shield. The ‘I missed you’ unsaid, not lost on Martin.

Across the table Martin drank from his own cup, the sweetness of the words not said making the tea taste even more warming.

It was a tentative thing, but it grew stronger the more the world tried to pull them apart. The bigger the distance, the more acute the unsaid thing between them became when they returned to the other’s side.

Martin wanted nothing more than to reach across the gap and smooth out the constant look of frustration that etched itself across Jon’s face, to help him catalogue and compartmentalise the erratic and unorganised thoughts that Martin knew ran through the other’s mind. Jon blamed himself for everything constantly. He wanted to help Jon, work it all out together. He was his assistant, his friend, maybe more? He wanted more, and with each passing day he was beginning to believe in that hope that Jon wanted the same.

He sipped his tea, across the table Jon did the same.

Why was he so awkward?

Why was Jon so hard to read?

Why couldn't they just address the elephant in the room and then maybe just, maybe..?

Jon caught him staring, eyes darting to the battlefield that was his plate, cheeks and ears flushing.

They should talk about it.

Could they talk about it?

Would talking about it do anything? That the end of the world was threatening to knock down the door was both a blessing and a curse.

"Jon…"

He looked up expectantly, hope blooming on his normally worried face. Martin's faith faltered… he wasn't good enough, he would never be good enough…

"Martin?,"

He faltered. Best not to talk about it.

"We should get back…,"

The way Jon's face fell broke his heart.

* * *

He tried to pour his heart into the cup he placed before Jon.

He could do nothing but hope that the love he projected after him would be enough to bring him home.

Jon had to come home.

He just had to.

He needed him to be safe.

* * *

Fingers drummed against Styrofoam, vending machine tea, tepid and tasteless rippled undrunk before being ignored.

The slow ticking of the clock as it mimicked a heartbeat that no longer was, the awful squeak of the rubber chair that offered no comfort, no place to be silent, no place to reflect.

Nurses came and went as Martin sat in silence, Jon’s hand trapped tight between his own.

He drummed a slow and steady rhythm, finding comfort in the familiar repeating pattern of three, a squeeze, a thumb traced a circle across a cold dead palm, the gentle drum of a Tap. Tap. Tap against worm pocked skin.

Jon had to come back.

Jon had to come back.

“Please come back, please… give him back” whispered into the night calling to a god that he wished didn’t exist.

* * *

  
  


Tap. Tap. Tap.

Another tea bag was thrown in the bin and the content of the cup tipped down the sink, rejected.

Martin watched as Jon sunk to his knees, tucked in on himself and shoulder shaking, Martin pulled the Forsaken close, fading slightly. He longed to reach out a hand to comfort but to go back on his promise to Peter would get just more people killed, might get Jon killed and he couldn’t have that. Not again.

He sank to the floor across the kitchen from the smaller man. The ache in his chest sparked with cold, cramping and compressing around his struggling heart.

He knew he shouldn’t care; he knew that the feelings he kept locked up for Jon were fighting back against the bitter chill, he could see his own feelings mirrored in Jon’s eyes where he sat an arm’s length away, his face turned up to the ceiling staring at the flickering overhead lamps and tears traversing the other man’s face. But he was numb to it. Unable to feel anything as the tendrils of fog choking out the last remnants of what made him.

A gentle fog like embrace to Jon's cheek was the only goodbye Martin could afford himself as he headed out of the archives. His will resolved to not come back. If Jon noticed Martin was long gone before he reacted.

* * *

Martin wasn’t sure when he realised that tapping the teaspoon was something that not everyone did when they made tea.

It had become a Pavlovian response in the archives. The sound of the teaspoon with its rhythmic Tap. Tap. Tap.

They associated it with comfort and belonging and home. But as the sound floated muted in the dark of the night, Martin tried to ignore the pain that tugged him towards the archives.

He could imagine the look on Jon’s face, though he knew if he looked in the mirror it would be etched upon his own.

Whatever the plan, Peter needed to move soon. The numbness was cracking, and the warmth was seeping in.

* * *

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound of the spoon on the side of the cup echoed loudly around his head, around his heart, around the few bits of his soul that dared to hang on in the lonely fog that hung to his very limbs.

He watched from the doorway. Shrouded in the safety of the forsaken, hidden in its cold and numbing embrace, he allowed himself to witness, to observe, to watch.

That was his role, he was to be the watcher in this forsaken place, to serve the lonely and the eye like some obedient omnipresent guard dog under Peter’s rule. But as much as the forsaken called to him, the beholding pulled him just as violently. It wanted him to know, to see, to understand. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Who watches the watcher? 

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Two sugars stir twice.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He watched as they rejected the tea, tipped down the sink and the bag tossed in the bin.

It wasn’t right; it wasn’t what the Archivist wanted.

It wasn’t the tea that was the problem.

Nothing was ever enough for the Archivist'.

As he followed Peter into the tunnels, there was nothing left of him, nothing but the echo of a promise that refused to let go. He felt it beating through his veins with a gentle one, two, three. Tap, tap, tap.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


He wore the forsaken well; it wrapped around him like an old coat. The gentle pain of nothingness numbed him at all sides, the world muted to greys and blues.

A voice on the horizon twisted, but familiar, oh so familiar…

A memory called out to him, an image of Jon, concern etched across his bloodied face, gigantic eyes searching out his, trying to tell him something with more than words.

He had done this for Jon, to keep Jon safe, he had said his goodbyes and now his mind wouldn’t let him rest, wouldn’t let him numb that awful burning that hung on in his heart, with its rhythmic pull, that part of him he hoped that Jon would hold on to even when he was gone, the bit of him that loved Jon beyond anything he could put into words.

He should have told him. When he still could.

Now all he had was a memory. A memory that pleaded with him ‘Martin I'm here, Martin I came for you... Martin, I thought you might be lost...’

“I really loved you, you know.”

He hoped the memory of Jon would understand; he hoped that the Jon he had left behind knew; he hoped that his own stupid destruction had been worth something in the end.

“Martin, he's gone.”

“Martin, listen.”

“Martin, what do you see?”

The color started to return, seeping in through the cracks. He could see Jon, his eyes burning through him, searching, trying to drag him back. He could feel the beholding edging in through the empty gaps that the forsaken had wedged open. It took longer than it should to realise that it wasn’t the eye; it was Jon, Jon was pulling him, guiding him, he knew the way.

The train rocked, it swayed with a rhythm, lulled him with its familiar one, two, three. Sleep called to him, he knew the nightmares would be dull and faded if they came at all.

The one constant point of heat that burned where fingers entwined with his own was new.

The world seemed soft, dampened around the edges as if far away, just out of reach. Not in how the lonely had numbed him, bleaching the color and warmth. There was a comfort in it. He could feel slender fingers tracing circles on the back of his hand, he could feel the resolute grip that encapsulated his own. He was no longer adrift; he was no longer unmoored upon the empty vast with no lighthouse to lead him safely ashore.

Jon anchored him as he let the sleep wash over him.

The gentle rocking of the train with its rhythmic clanking becoming just background noise to the pulse that beat in time with his own.

* * *

He watched, and as he did so the colour rose along the sharp angles of Jon’s cheeks.

Long fingers clicked on the kettle, a cheap plastic thing that did the job well enough, no fancy stove top needed, it was all so familiar. How many times had he watched Jon try to make tea from beyond the veil of the forsaken? His heart ached, and it surprised him. He had been so sure that, that longing, that aching would never return. Resolute that the empty hope he still carried whenever he thought of Jon, the love that had been so prevalent before The one alone had taken over like a parasite and hollowed him out, would never return that the force of it now shocked him.

He wanted to reach out now to pull Jon in by his bony elbows and never let him go, yet it mesmerised him, watching as Jon went through the motions as Martin sat at the end of the counter, silently watching.

He had spoken little since they had left the institute, words seemed to be something that wouldn’t form, sentences seemed to form in his mind but die before they reached the mouth.

Not that they sat in silence, Jon seemed determined to fill the quiet with words, with idle chatter as they found their place in their new space.

They had fallen asleep on the battered sofa; the sleepiness had not left Martin since the train; the sofa had been a blessing piled high already with dusty blankets and a promise of warmth, yet space, albeit still close enough for Jon to find his hand under the blankets and ground him with twisted fingers and that slow steady beat of a pulse under palm.

He had silently moved to the kitchen when he awoke, Jon was gone… but Martin could sense him, feel his presence in the next room, the gentle shuffling of rubber soles on solid stone floors, the exasperated sighs of a man who was irritated with the world.

Jon had jumped as he walked in and took a seat. Martin moved silently now, he had never been a loud man but now he made no sound at all as he glided from step to step. He hoped the silent apology in the look he had given Jon had been enough.

And now he watched, the layers of the lonely creeping from his skin. Jon was watching him in the dark reflection of the glass window. Had they slept all day? Or had it been only hours? Was the darkness that pressed around the cottage the same as the one that had lulled them to sleep? Or was this a fresh darkness, wrapped in its own layer of fear and apprehension?

His eyes caught Jon’s in the mirrored reflection, muted around the sides by the defused light, the unnatural glow that the beholding had besieged upon him faded in the reversed image, he looked so much like the Jon that Martin had loved…

“Tea?”

Martin nodded, watching as Jon reached into the cupboard and take out two faded mugs.

Martin itched to reach out, to take over, the familiarity of it all calling to him. He tried to pull back; he wasn’t supposed to, Peter would be disappointed- he shook his head. The cold had clung at the edges of the thought as he had it. Would he ever truly be free of the one alone? Jon was moving again, drawing his attention from the biting cold towards a scarred hand that rested on the handle of the kettle.

He watched as the white tea bags became a rich warm brown as the boiling water churned them as it crashed down from the upturned spout. The steam rose in earnest as it reacted with the bitter cold of the Scottish Highlands and a stone cottage that had yet to warm from its empty state.

Jon stirred the water, every so often tapping the spoon on the edge of the porcelain as he moved from cup to cup.

Tap.

Martin got to his feet.

Tap.

Moving in to the space around Jon he watched in the reflection,

Tap.

He reached out, grabbing at the hand Jon was about to use to remove the tea bag.

He stalled. Head shooting up and turning to look up at Martin, a question etched on his face.

“Martin?”

He stilled Jon’s hand in his own, trying not to linger on the sudden feeling of warmth that emanated from the point of contact. How many times had he watched in silence as Jon messed this bit up? How many times had he wanted to intervene?

“Wait.”

Jon stilled under his touch and allowed Martin to guide him to place the spoon gently to one side.

His skin itched now, a prickly heat building in an almost fight-or-flight response to the disrespect he had shown his god, because the lonely held him long before the Eye had even seen him on the horizon, it had been twisting him and turning him without his say so for so long that he was surprised that the Beholding had been able to get a foothold. Yet he managed to escape it before, and he could do it again. He would do it again, he had to do it for Jon. He wanted so badly to let go, to let Jon’s hand move away from the contact he had initiated, but he couldn’t… No, He wouldn’t let go.

Not this time.

He forced himself to move closer, bracketing Jon between his arms, both facing the counter, the tea and their own reflections. The fog tried to drag him back, pulling him away, the twisting wisps of steam reminiscent of the fog that held him for so very long.

Yet, the need to be near Jon silenced it.

He tried not to startle when Jon became a solid presence pressed into his chest, warm and real and present in a way that yelled to Martin that he was safe.

The reflection in the glass showed that of domestic bliss, the fear of rejection, the fear of the things outside of their control gone in the shimmer and distortion that held their likeness in its grasp.

“You never did let it seep” a voice that sounded so little like his own broke the silence. How long since he had tried to make conversation? How long had he wandered the forsaken? It felt like an eternity. His voice was cracked and broken, his lips dry from cold. The taste of the sea still lingered in the cracks. He had a feeling it forever would.

He moved Jon’s hand now, guiding him to scoop out the bags now that the tea was the right side of brewed.

In his arms Jon shuffled, twisting himself to reach for the sugar, unable to reach Martin handed it down, pressing himself closer to Jon in the process. The feeling of connection pushing away the cold, the numbness as the world became a little more solid with every new point of contact.

Two spoonfuls of sugar levelled and placed in each fresh brewed cup, stirred and then the spoon raised with a Tap. Tap. Tap.

Was that tap a thing that would follow them? Mocking them? It was the beating heart of the archive following him from long ago, taunting them in the present.

“No milk.” Jon deflated in his arms. The tea wasn’t right. The tea was wrong. The reflection of Jon twisted its face, in a way that Martin wished it wouldn’t, he wanted to make it understand. The tea was nothing but a routine in its familiarity. They had a chance now, they didn’t have to find comfort in old routines.

“The tea is fine Jon.”

His heart betrayed him. He was sure it beat so loud it would shake the cottage to its very foundations.

“Its not right, I can’t make it like yours, I've tried.” the frustration grew behind his eyes as he turned to face him, that same look of despair that had shadowed across the smaller mans face in the break room with each discarded cup now directed at him was almost enough to break him on the spot.

“Imitations are never as good as the real thing I find.” he wanted to reach out, to hold Jon, to make him understand that he had made his choice and his choice was always going to be Jon. He served no God, he made his own decisions and no matter what they always came back to the man that stood before him. He reached out now, tipping Jon’s head towards him with a crooked finger. Stepping in till he could no longer focus on the other, the feeling of Jon’s breath upon his own face causing his own breathing to falter. Jon had come into the lonely to save him, to drag him out even, his own life on the line because he loved him. Jon loved him. He had all but said it a million times in actions over the last year while Martin faded into nothingness, almost too far gone to claw his way back.

But he had.

He had made it back because Jon loved him, and he Loved Jon, and if that was a problem, well then it was someone else's to deal with. Right now, for the first time in a long time, the world was simple. Martin’s purpose was safe in his arms, his warm arms. When had that happened, when had the cold been chased away completely? When did the world become technicolor?

“It wasn’t about the tea was it.” he whispered as he lent in and caught Jon’s lips in his own. Felt the sigh against his lips and the gentle shake of the head before Jon deepened the kiss.

The archivist and his assistant.

The way it was always meant to be.

  
  
  


Across the miles the mother smiled as she stirred her sugar into the intricate web patterned tea cup, raising the spoon to the side she shook off the excess tea with a Tap, Tap, 

Tap.

Everything was going to plan.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> am i happy with it ? no  
> am i making that your problem ? yes.  
> kudos is awesome.  
> comments are better.  
> my tapping ocd, being used in yet another fic... damn right.  
> thanks for reading and check out the other fan works in this series over on the challenge page  
> x pez


End file.
